By Catherine Owen Koning, Originally Published in The Monadnock Shopper News, Green Monadnock column, February 2026.
Mt. Monadnock, with its forested slopes and bare rock summit, seems like it is never going to change. Antioch faculty member Dr. Peter Palmiotto has been studying these forests for over 2 decades, and he can tell you otherwise. “The only thing constant on the mountain is change – through geologic, seasonal, and daily time scales.”
Monadnock’s trees prevent climate change, as they take in more planet-warming carbon dioxide than they release. But will these trees, and the animals they support, be able to adapt to human-caused climate change? Monadnock formed from sediments left in an ancient ocean, pushed up and metamorphosed into a hard mass of schists and quartzites – very little granite! Monadnock is the Abenaki term for the mountain that stands alone, having withstood the force of glacial ice that wore down lesser hills.
After the glacier melted, lichens grew on the mountain’s bare rock; soil slowly formed, and tundra of sedges and grasses established. Gradually, trees took over, until 1000 years ago, the forest we know today was established, with spruce/fir conifer forest at the top.
Cores taken from Thoreau’s bog on the mountain revealed charcoal 7420 years old, so fire was common then, when temperatures were 0.4-1.3 degrees F warmer than today. Then, temperatures started to cool until the industrial era began, when burning fossil fuels created planet-warming pollution.
The bald summit we see today is the result of fires set not by nature, but by farmers, to create sheep pastures. The fires burned through the shallow layers of soil atop the mountain, exposing the bare rock. Dr. Palmiotto dispelled the local legend about locals setting a fire to drive out the last wolf, noting that the fires happened long after wolves were gone from the area.
In 2007, Palmiotto and his crew of Antioch students established 130 permanent study plots at different elevations around the mountain. They described the distinct zones of plants you encounter when hiking up: hemlock-beech-oak-pine forest, then sugar maple-beech-yellow birch, then a mix of northern hardwoods, red spruce, and balsam fir. Even higher, it’s just spruce and fir, stunted by the harsh conditions at the summit, and other unique plants on rocky ridges. Finally, the top is all rock, covered in lichens and sprouting cute crevice plants. These plants grow very slowly; try not to step on them!
The natural communities of Mt. Monadnock have changed over millennia, a slow natural change. Human-caused changes are happening much faster.
We know that climate change is making our region wetter and warmer. We are seeing more temperature extremes; heat; drought; rain on snow; ice storms. The 2008 ice storm turned Monadnock into a crystal palace of ice, making the tree branches 30 times heavier. Palmiotto’s study showed that over 50% of the trees on the east side of the mountain were damaged, and some of the plots showed 58% of the canopy damaged. But ten years later, the trees had grown back. Mostly, the forest was pretty resilient to the ice storms.
With climate change, southern NH will have a climate like North Carolina by 2070. Forest scientists predict that the northern species, like balsam fir, striped maple, and gray birch, are likely to disappear. Red oak, sugar and red maple, and hickories will increase, along with poplars and white pine. These predictions do not consider wildfire, tree diseases or insects, which are also expected to increase with climate change.
Longer droughts and more wildfires are likely. New England forests used to be considered “asbestos forests” – they never burned. However, ice storms, hurricanes, microbursts, can leave a lot of dead branches; add in droughts = fuel for a bad fire. If the spruce fir forests of Quebec can burn, our forests could also succumb to blazes.
As the trees change, the wildlife will also move or adapt: Snowshoe hare, Bicknell’s thrush and lynx may not call NH home anymore.
Dr. Palmiotto concluded, “Oak-hickory forest is the future for Monadnock, spruce-fir may be a thing of the past. I am confident that because the forests are complex and resilient, they will persist, continuing to take in carbon and release oxygen for many years to come.”
Catherine Owen Koning is a Professor of Environmental Science and Policy at Franklin Pierce University in Rindge NH. She is also a board member of the Monadnock Sustainability Hub, which strengthens the sustainability and resilience of our region by working collaboratively to reduce climate pollution and reach 100% clean energy.